A THOUSAND WORDS - Alex Waterhouse-Hayward's blog on pictures, plants, politics and whatever else is on his mind.

Mel Hurtig - 24 June 1932 – 3 August 2016

Wednesday, August 03, 2016

I photographed Mel Hurtig in January of 1993 for the Georgia
Straight. Charles Campbell, the then editor of the weekly chose the top left
photograph because he thought it was zany (a word often then in Campbell’s
vocabulary). Mr. Hurtig charmed me and I found him intelligent and most willing
to listen (as opposed to most other politicians). We had a long chat and I have
forgotten the thread. But for at least one year after, I received political
propaganda from the man.

Some years ago while teaching at a downtown photography
school one of my students, an English young man whose last name was a most
poetic Strand asked me in the presence of other students, “Alex can you show us
photographs of people in magazines that still exist?” My rapid answer tinged
with that inevitable sadness as Strand had indeed struck his mark was, “Most of
my subjects from existing magazines are all dead.”